The ever-changing look of college conferences will see a major shift in 2024.
Oklahoma and Texas have reached an agreement to leave the Big 12 and head to the powerful SEC, Sports Illustrated reported Thursday.
The cost to the Sooners and Longhorns for an early exit will be a cool $100 million between the schools.
The Longhorns and Sooners have finalized an agreement with the Big 12, as well as its television partners, to exit the league one year earlier than scheduled, sources tell Sports Illustrated. Under the agreement, the schools would join the SEC in July 2024, in time to participate in the ’24 football season.
… As part of the exit agreement, the Longhorns and Sooners will owe a combined $100 million to the conference, much of which will be distributed to the eight Big 12 legacy universities to offset an expected decrease in their 2024 conference revenue. Details of any Fox and ESPN agreement were unclear, but Fox is expected to receive additional inventory or compensation for the loss of the two schools in ’24.
Sources: A key part of the deal to let OU and Texas out of Big 12 early was a game flip of a non-conference match-up between Michigan and Texas. Texas will now visit Michigan in 2024 in Ann Arbor and Michigan will return the game in Austin in 2027. They’d been scheduled opposite.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 10, 2023